Put to the sword… (MacGuffins work!)

Starting to work on the next MacGuffin’s product and I think I’ve settled on some qualities of bladed weapons. What do you think of this list:

Property (d8) (more to come)

Shape

Length

Width

Edge

Hilt

Sheath/Scabbard

Balance

Point

Sense (d6)

Sight

Hearing

Smell

Touch

Taste

Roll again

Descriptors (d20) (more to come)

Cracked

Smooth

Ridged

Wrapped

Even

Uneven

Chipped

Scratched

Carved

Straight

Bent

Bulging

Bare

Spare

Dark

Spotted

Stained

Dented

Rusty

Thick

Examples

(Shape/Sight/Cracked) Owned by his family for generations, Charles often wondered why they bothered to keep the damned sword at all. You could see the cracks in the old metal all along the blade… the shape was irregular as though the blacksmith was in a hurry at the forge that day, creating an oblong shaft near the pommel and a rough triangle at the tip… and the weight. His father worked with him for years until he was finally able to wield the family symbol with some skill. But today as he lay bleeding out on the floor, he knew he would be the last to appreciate the irony of being a shield baron with a crappy blade. If you could defend your family honor with such a hunk of metal, you could do anything… and now he was wishing he had trained a bit more vigorously as the sounds of battle echoed through the manor house as the rebellion began.

(Length/Hearing/Smooth) Lady Amory was never one for form over function in her life, but her blade Yamine was something she treasured. Though built like a long sword, it had a shorter blade with a smooth edge that gleamed in the sun even when dripping with blood. It never caught in the scabbard like some others she’d seen costing them the battle and usually their lives. She took fine care of it even if she was less picky about where she slept, what she ate, and the quality of people she entertained. This is a violent world and a fighter needs to know she can count on her weapon regardless the odds.

(Width/Smell/Wrapped) Amidst the weapons gathering dust in the imperial cache lay the widest broadsword Captain Hevell had ever seen. Easily four inches across, the sword almost came across as a nearly three-foot long axe edge than a blade. But it was how he found it that caused him to ask the royal historian for some additional information. It had been discovered wrapped in a smelly canvas that turned out to be the bloody remnants of the coat of the errant knight Ser Brandt of the Harrow family. The story was that the knight used a huge sword in combat to hack limbs from opponent with a ferocity unmatched on the battlefield. But there was another story that he possessed an odor that distracted his enemies and turned them green, granting him the moments he needed to dismember them with the blade. The canvas definitely had an odor that was distinctly unpleasant and caused Hevell to empty his stomach a time or two. But the blade was a marvel and still ready to wield after all this time…

These are but a few swords I came up with for this post, but I have much more in store for this product. Blades come in many shapes and sizes and hopefully you can use them to inspire some great stories to go with them!